Jan 08
24
There has been an upswing in the recent days and months regarding the “cmsness” (I love it when I can make up words) of Wordpress. I think the discussion gets a little off base, in that the definition of cms is very subjective. I belive that anything you use to create and publish content, is in some shape or form a “cms.”
So then the debate turns to what makes a good cms? I believe a good cms at its core must be flexible enough to allow a wide range of people the ability to manage their content the way they want to manage it. And I don’t know of another application that has as large a userbase, as large of a community that is active in creating new plugins, or the flexibility to become most things to most people as Wordpress does.
So with that little soliloquy I’m presenting a list and descriptions of the plugins and techniques I have used to make Wordpress a very effective and useful content management system for a wide variety of clients.
Custom Admin Branding Plugin
This is my own plugin which allows you to re-brand the login screen, header and footer of the Wordpress admin. You can upload your own images or your clients logos to make them feel more at home.
Clutter Free
This plugin allows portions of the WordPress interface to be hidden that your client won’t use. Each author’s preferences are stored separately and can be edited in the author’s profile.
Custom Admin Menu
This is a brilliant plugin that allows full customization over the menus and submenus in the Wordpress administration area. You can create new menus, and reorder and relabel existing ones.
Custom Write Panel
What does this beauty do? In general it allows you to create your own custom fields in the write section. In reality you are creating an entirely new writing section in which you can choose specific input fields to display. You can also create custom fields that are specific to your user. If you combine this with the Custom Admin Menu plugin you can create a menu of specific forms for your end users to write with.
The documentation for this plugin is pretty sparse so look for a future post where I’ll outline how I’ve used it.
Fresh Post
This plugin is an offshoot of the Custom Write Panel. The Fresh Post plugin is essentially the same as the Custom Write Panel but has added the ability to upload files and images. This feature alone makes this plugin one of the most valuable plugins in my Wordpress Admin. It also comes with a sweet little script that automatically resizes and thumbnails images.
The only downside is that much like the Custom Write Panel documentation is pretty much non-existant so you’re going to have to play with it a bit. I’ve also discovered that this plugin is unfortunately incompatible with the podpress plugin (version 8.8 running on WP 2.3.2)
Both of these plugins do not seem to be in any sort of active development cycle but hopefully someone can pick up where these have left off because the features these plugins offer are far too valuable to leave and let lie.
[update 3.11.08 It appears that Fresh Post is alive and well and a new version will be released on 3.15.08. I'm planning to do a complete review after it comes out so stay tuned. The best plugin for the Wordpress CMS possibly just got better.]
Dagon Design Form Mailer
This is another absolutely indispensable plugin. It allows you to create custom forms and have the data emailed back to you. There is not a limit on the amount of forms you can create and the customization options for it are practically endless.
cForms II
Much like the previous plugin cforms is a highly customizable, flexible and powerful contact form plugin, covering a variety of use cases. Some of the features that distinguish this plugin are the ability to add upload fields, track data from within the Wordpress admin.
Dashboard Editor
Wipe the cluttered dashboard clean and insert your own content. Greet your clients with a personalized message, links, widgets and more.
Image Manager
If your clients will be uploading a lot of pictures this is the perfect plugin. It organizes, inserts and even does simple editing. The plugin allows your clients to crop and resize pics without leaving the admin section. It will also create better thumbnails and even integrate with Lightbox.
One Click Installer
This is more for you than your clients. This plugin simplifies and speeds up the process of installing all these other plugins. You will wonder how you lived without this one.
Post Template
This plugin allows you to create post templates in order to save time writing posts having the same structure.
Search Everything
I’m not sure why this isn’t a Wordpress default but this plugin will do what it says. It allows the search function in Wordpress to search everything including options to search pages, attachments, drafts, comments and custom fields.
43 Responses to “Completing the CMS With Wordpress”
Trackbacks
- Completing the CMS with Wordpress : Josh Byers | My Digital Playground of Fun and Frivolity
- WordPress Weekly Episode 5 » Jeffro2pt0.com
- Denis Welsch - Blog Deluxe & Personal Showcase » Blog Archiv » links for 2008-02-13
- » WordPress as CMS WPMu Ed
- John Tutchings » Completing the CMS With Wordpress : Pressing Pixels | A Wordpress Magazine
- Ressourcen um Wordpress als CMS zu nutzen « Wordpress, Plugins, Reasons, Beispiel, Five, Themes, Available, “CMS « Volderette
- WordPress Weekly Episode 5 | Jeffro2pt0
- ExileDesigns | Webdesign, illustrations & more
- Completing the CMS With Wordpress 2 : Pressing Pixels | A Wordpress Magazine
- WordPress - The Thread - Gigposters.com
January 24th, 2008
Hi Josh,
I’m Pere (like Peter, but in Catalan). I’m from Barcelona. Nice post, good compilation of “wp for client Stuff” and better plugin of your own.
Just, thank you.
PD: i liked your site and your photos.
Keep Swinging!!!
January 24th, 2008
Thanks Pere,
Glad it was helpful. Thanks for the positive comments!
January 24th, 2008
Hi Josh
Nice list of useful pointers. The ‘Dashboard Editor’ link is broken though !
MJ
January 24th, 2008
Thanks for the tip MJ - I fixed the link.
January 24th, 2008
Wow. Great list. Thanks.
Glad I stumbled on you!
January 24th, 2008
This is a terrific article. I’ve been telling people that WP is so much more than a blog platform and you’re showing how.
January 27th, 2008
I’ve been maintaining one site as a CMS ever since 2004, but I didn’t even know about the branding plugins, and I’m so going to need them for a client’s website. Josh, thank you so much!
January 27th, 2008
No problem! Its something I’ve always needed as well. Hope it works out well for you.
January 31st, 2008
hi Josh.
Thanks so much for sharing your way of working with wordpress as a cms tool.
I also use it for cms and as a blog only :-).
It’s a lightweight system and easy to understand and maintain.
cheers :-)
January 31st, 2008
Hey Oren,
I think that is the beauty and genius of Wordpress. It can be used a complex cms but it is still very simple for someone that just wants to run a blog.
Thanks for checking out the site!
February 2nd, 2008
Hullo Josh,
Thanks so much for this great list. I have been using wordpress for sometime as a CMS and it is really great.
I didn’t know some of the plugins above so I am really grateful and they are indeed grateful especially your own Custom Admin Branding Plugin. I have been looking for this and I thought of probably doing it myself BUT thanks to you for the great work which has saved me and I guess so many other people out there.
February 2nd, 2008
Josh:
We use WP as a CMS for two daily news websites in small communities in Upstate New York. We get a lot of traffic, relatively speaking: About 15,000 visits a day, serving about 2 million pages a month.
Any site built in WP that will have a significant amount of traffic *needs* this plugin: wp-cache.
It sharply reduces the load on your database, which will reduce your bandwidth needs and speed the serving of complex pages to readers.
If you’re opening your publication up to submissions from the public or even from a group of trusted users, here are a few plugins that we think are essential:
>> Role Manager, which allows you to set up roles for different types of users within your system. It gives you control over what users of given roles can and cannot do;
>> Limit Categories, which strips down the Categories choices for users, based on their roles assigned in the Role Manager.
We use a lot more plugins that that, but there are a couple of plugins missing, in my view, that hamper WP as a CMS.
Prime among them is a way to manage images in about the same way that you manage posts. The default image handler is insufficient for dealing with dozens of pictures a day — there’s no simple search or categorizing function and no way, without an extra plugin, of expressing photo captions within posts.
(The Image Manager plugin you mentioned above broke our system. I’m not the webmaster and I can’t remember what it did, but as much as we liked the plugin, we can’t use it.)
Thanks for the great post — I found a couple of items here worth checking out.
Dave Bullard
Fulton Daily News.com
Oswego Daily News.com
February 2nd, 2008
Hey Dave,
I totally agree on the wp-cache plugin, and in fact I think the Super WP-Cache plugin is even better.
Here are the links to the other two plugins you mentioned:
Role Manager
Limit Categories
You’ve given me a good idea for another post: Plugins and techniques that make Wordpress a good CMS for multiple users. Look for that one soon.
Thanks for checking out the site.
February 3rd, 2008
Josh,
This is a brilliant article. I consider myself pretty knowledgeable in the Wordpress-as-CMS area, but even I didn’t know about some of the plugins you mentioned. These will definitely be very helpful as I continue to make sites for clients.
Future post idea — same thing, but plugins compatible with/specially designed for Wordpress MU.
February 4th, 2008
Ravi,
Thanks for the kind words.
I don’t know a lot of Wordpress MU but I am wanting to learn and I will definitely be researching for an article on that subject.
February 5th, 2008
Josh, great collection of WordPress plugins! I am going to have to create a CMS category in my categorized list of WordPress Plugins! :-) Stumbled.
February 26th, 2008
Hi Josh,
Thanks for this great resource. This will come in very handy indeed.
Mark
March 9th, 2008
We’re releasing the next version of fresh post on march 15th. It will include a healthy set of new features.
http://freshout.us/goodies/fresh-post-for-wordpress-wordpress-cms/
March 9th, 2008
That is awesome news! Freshpost is one of the most valuable CMS plugins available!
I’ll plan to do a complete write up about it as well.
March 11th, 2008
For better or worse, you’ve been Dugg. :)
Thanks for the great list!
March 11th, 2008
Thanks! We’ll see what happens…
March 16th, 2008
i’m using most of these plugins already, very nice list!
March 26th, 2008
Thanks for this list.. i have been looking for something just like this for a while . it has helped greatly
Ta
Hal9000
April 2nd, 2008
Hey Josh, do you happen to be on WP 2.5? I just upgraded to 2.5 and now ImageManager doesn’t work. Any luck for you?
April 3rd, 2008
I haven’t upgraded to 2.5 on this site because I’m dependent on the Fresh Post plugin which doesn’t work with 2.5 yet.
I actually don’t have a site that uses ImageManager that I’ve upgraded.
April 3rd, 2008
Ah, gotcha. Thanks for the reply. I ended up just using Dean’s FCKeditor plugin so at least I can upload images to multiple directories. Not ideal, but I suppose it’ll do for now.
Can’t wait for the new Fresh Post plugin to be released!
May 11th, 2008
Hi,
I love WP and use it for friends’ and relatives’ sites.
I would like to use WP for medium-scale (100+ page) sites.
Does anyone have experience with this?
Are there any potential pitfalls I should know about before embarking on this?
Thanks,
Josh
June 4th, 2008
Very, very interesting post…
just FYI looks like the Search Everything functionality is now core in 2.5
Stefano
June 4th, 2008
Hey Stefano,
Thanks for checking out the site. I’m in the process of publishing another list of CMS oriented plugins - so stay tuned!
Regarding Search Everything - I’m not sure about how much is integrated in the core. I did a quick Google search and didn’t find much of anything.
I do know that Search Everything search custom fields which I am pretty confident that the default WP search does not. That feature alone makes it worth checking out if you use custom fields.
I would love to see WP ramp up the search feature even more however.
June 11th, 2008
The ImageManager is dangerous since the manager itself can be accessed without being logged in. It is even available when the plugin is deactivated!
It is not possible to upload new images but it is still possible to delete or edit images.
I have informed the creator lately but sofar he did not change it nor informed the community.
June 11th, 2008
Anton,
Good to know. Thanks for the update.
July 14th, 2008
Thanks you for compiling this list - it’s temendously useful.
However, barunsingh’s site has been completely down for several days, and I’ve not so far found anywhere else to download the Custom Admin Menu plugin from.
September 16th, 2008
I highly suggest checking out the newest release of FreshPost (now called Flutter) - http://freshout.us/goodies/fresh-post-for-wordpress-wordpress-cms/